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Thursday, March 5, 2015

TIDBITS From Tough Cookie

Welcome to a new feature called TIDBITS. A tidbit is an extra scene from one of my titles. I may be a deleted scene or something that just didn't fit in the story but was fun. It may also be something I came up afterwards that dug its way into my mind and I had to get down on paper.

The first TIDBIT is a short piece about what happened to Marie "Tough Cookie" Kessel four years after the novel ended. Rated M.

Life
at U.S Coast Guard Station Charleston was good for BM1 PO1 Marie Lingley. Over
the four years that she had served there, her units performed admirably and,
without exception, she was thought of as a model Guardian by her commanders and
her unit members. Her duties expanded, and she took on more units and greater
responsibilities, particularly in environmental protection where she was frequently
dispatched to other stations and sectors up and down the eastern seaboard. She
was important and always performed her duties magnificently.Even
though she had expanded duties, they let her hang onto her first unit, her
small command of patrolling the Ditch; the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway. They
still plowed up and down the channel to the north and south of Charleston, but
they did finally get newer boats. But she only had to watch over them at arm’s
length since PO3 Shonda Wilkins ably took over day-to-day command of the unit.

And
to make her life even sweeter, being Mrs. Mark Lingley was something that she
cherished and loved. He was still a top performer at Flashworld, but still just
as the top inside sales representative for the company. He turned down several
promotion opportunities since he knew that orders for Marie would eventually
come that would push them to make a move away from Charleston. It was only a
matter of time. And she loved him all the more for his deference to her. Everyone
else knew it too. Gina Elliot (General Manager at Flashworld) and Danny Backes
(Sales Manager) had everything worked out so that Mark could work remotely from
anywhere the Coast Guard sent them. Just like how Marie was valuable to the
Coast Guard, Mark was valuable to Flashworld.

Tough
Cookie Lingley always believed that humility was something important to her and
she never liked to swagger, but she didn’t mind making an entrance. She rolled
into the station’s gate in her bright, Coast Guard red Fiat, stopped with a bit
of screech, and handed her credentials to the guard.

“Good
morning, Johansson.”

“Good
morning, ma’am. Did you have a good weekend?”

“Yes,
I did. You?”

“Yes,
ma’am. Was that you I saw out on that SeaRay on Saturday? Nice boat. When did
you get that?”

“Where
the heck did you see us?”

“The
Charleston Megadock. I was fishing and stopped for fuel. You were going a bit
over idle speed, if you don’t’ mind me saying, ma’am.”

“It’s
my brother-in-law’s 410 Sundancer. Damn thing really plows, even at idle speed.
Sorry if I waked you. God, even on my day off I’m still on the water. But it’s
a sweet boat.”

“Yes,
ma’am. Looked nice. Wait a second … This is for you.”

Johansson
handed an envelope to Marie. When she opened it, she read the brief message
that ordered her to report to HQ.

“Would you call ahead to Wilkins and
Carmichael and tell them I’m diverted to HQ, and to go ahead and get out
there?” she asked Johannson.

“Aye,
sir. Will do. Have a good day.”

“You
too, oh, and call Tat’jana at extension 455 and tell her to go ahead and get the
stuff ready for our presentation this afternoon.” Shonda Wilkins and Sean
Carmichael were both in charge of patrol units; Wilkins patrolled the Ditch,
Carmichael in the bay and out in the Atlantic on a Defender class boat. Tat’jana
Carmichael, then a civilian, was Marie’s assistant, and they were going to make
a presentation at a luncheon of a local business association about the Coast
Guard’s efforts to mitigate accidental waste dumped into the Charleston River.

When
she talked to the receptionist at the sector office, she was surprised that she
had been ordered to see Sector Commander Sachs, by then a familiar and friendly
colleague. She couldn’t think of anything that she was up to that necessarily
involved his level of command. But, she proceeded promptly to his office and
was let in to see him.

“BM1
Lingley reporting, sir.”

“At
ease, Marie. It’s been awhile. Can I get you anything to drink? Coffee?”

“No
thank you, sir. I’m good.”

“You
went down to that retirement party for John Howell, didn’t you?”

“Yes,
sir; down in Key West. It was great to see him and Gladys again. He did his
time and did it well. He told me that they were thinking of moving back to
Tulsa, but by the end of the evening, Gladys told me that she seriously doubted
that he would let himself get stuck back on land again. She was thinking they
would end up in some place like Vero Beach.”

While
she and Mark were in Key West, they, of course, saw Mary and Brad Bonk. They
surprised everyone when they got married shortly after Marie and Mark’s wedding.
They didn’t re-up with the Coast Guard though, but they liked living in the
Keys. They both went into law enforcement. She became a Monroe County Sheriff’s
deputy, and he joined the City of Key West Police.

“You
still in contact with Mack McGee?”

“Yes,
sir. They’re good friends of Mark and I. We see them every couple of weeks.
Last month he did tell me something that kind of shocked me.”

“What
was that?”

“Remember
Marshal Culver? The guy that attacked us?”

“Yes.”

“Apparently,
he really pissed somebody off in the brig. They found him dead in his cell.
Somebody broke his neck and, um, castrated him. It was pretty gruesome. McGee
said that the brig couldn’t ever figure out who did it.”

“Or
they wouldn’t figure out who did it.
Justice is a funny thing sometimes. How do you feel about that, Marie?”

“I
feel sorry for his family. It’s sad.”

“I
don’t know if I would feel as compassionate about that, like you. But, that is
you, isn’t it?”

“That
whole experience taught me a lot, sir. Life is important, no matter who’s it
is.”

“Well,
that’s what makes you an excellent member of the Coast Guard. And that’s kind
of the reason why I asked you here. Do you remember when I talked to you at the
gym when you first reported here, and I told you that I was unofficially tasked
with helping you to advance to officer?”

“Yes,
sir.”

“And
by the way, how many 70-pound bags have you, as Chief Howell so eloquently put
it, ‘killed’?”

“I
think three, sir.”

“You
know, that always made us laugh during budgeting. ‘Well, there’s another
three-hundred bucks for the gym’. We all joked that that should have been a
morale expense.”

“Sorry,
sir, but it got pretty easy,” she wryly replied. Her workouts at the gym had
always been a bit of spectacle to see, and she still drew crowds whenever she
worked out. There was little Tough Cookie wreaking havoc on the gym gear again.

“Marie,
The reason I wanted to see you this morning was to talk about your application
to the Officer Candidate School. When did you submit that? About a month ago?”

“Six
weeks, three days, sir. But who’s counting?”

“I
guess you know that there have been a lot of eyes on you. You have done it all.
You’ve had commands, you’ve taken every kind of training there is, you
maintained a spotless record, been promoted, and you’re getting a marine
biology degree on top of all that? You’re shooting for a Marine Science rating,
huh?”

“It’s
been a lot of work, sir. But I like it.”

“Well,
that’s pretty damn obvious. Ha! I can’t even figure out how you have the energy
to do it all.”

“My
family helps a lot. My sister, Monica, pushes the hell out of me. And her
husband, Gabe, has helped me too. But mostly, it’s Mark. He’s always kept me on
course and never let me down, sir.”

“Have
you taken any vacation time at all
during the last four years?”

“I
took the times, sir, but I always had something to do. I like all the work. But
Mark and I always make time for each other, and I stick pretty close to my
family.”

Sachs
sat at his desk and just kind of stared at Marie, like he was studying her and
maybe trying to figure out if he could clone her and fill his command with a
whole bunch of Tough Cookie Lingleys. He then shook his head a bit and laughed.

“You
know, I remember when you first came here with your nickname—Tough Cookie. It
was easy to think it only meant what had happened to you with Culver—that it
meant you were a fighter; tough, strong, fearless. But, right now, finally, I
know what it really means. It takes a tough cookie to be as complete and
accomplished a person like you are. Tell me why you applied to the Officer
Candidate School.”

“I
really do believe I have a lot more to give to not only the Coast Guard, but to
the nation. I want to advance. I think I can make a difference. When I signed
up, I thought I would come in, do my three years, and get out. I wanted to go
to college. I wanted to set myself up for my civilian life, But after I was in,
I saw that I fit in so well. It became part of me. I love being in the Coast
Guard. Mark and I have talked a lot about it. I’m a lifer, sir. This is my
career. I’ll always be grateful for the opportunities I’ve had, and to everyone
that has helped me.”

“Marie,
like I said, a lot of people in the Coast Guard, very important and high
ranking people, have been watching you. You exemplify exactly the kind of
characteristics that we all wish every member of the United States Coast Guard
had.” He reached into a file folder on his desk and handed it to her. “Here are
your orders to report in three weeks to the Officer Candidate School at
Yorktown, Virginia. Congratulations, Marie.”

Marie
may have acted restrained, but Sachs easily saw how excited she was. And she
deserved to be. All of her dedication, her character and integrity, her hard
work, her perseverance, her energy, her concentration, and her rock-solid
toughness had paid off.